RecTech: The Recruiting Technology Podcast
Phenom Buys Plum
Why It Matters
These developments illustrate how AI and data‑driven assessments are reshaping talent acquisition, helping companies reduce bad hires and streamline hiring cycles. For HR professionals and recruiters, understanding these tools and recent acquisitions is crucial to staying competitive in a market where validated behavioral insights are becoming a hiring standard.
Key Takeaways
- •Phenom acquires Plum, expanding psychometric assessment suite.
- •Plum’s model predicts job performance with four‑times higher accuracy.
- •Phenom also bought BeApplied, completing full assessment stack.
- •Fama secures patent for AI‑driven social background screening.
- •Windmill raises $12 million to unify fragmented workforce data.
Pulse Analysis
Phenom, a leading talent acquisition platform, announced the purchase of Plum, a psychometric assessment specialist. Plum’s proprietary role‑model technology maps behavioral blueprints against more than 40,000 real‑world jobs, delivering predictions that are four times more accurate than traditional resume screening. Combined with Phenom’s recent acquisition of BeApplied, the company now offers a complete assessment stack covering cognitive, behavioral and situational capabilities. Phenom’s AI agents promise to compress weeks‑long evaluation cycles into hours, scaling validated assessments across every open role and dramatically lowering the risk of costly mis‑hires.
The deal sits amid a wave of HR‑tech investments. Windmill secured $12 million to build a “context graph” that unifies fragmented workforce data, while Nomad Health transitioned from staffing agency to software platform, leveraging an AI operating system built on millions of placement hours. Checker introduced portable identity profiles that let candidates share verified credentials across job boards, already adopted by GigSmart. Meanwhile, Fama Technologies won a U.S. patent covering AI‑driven social media background screening, cementing its claim as the originator of the technology that now underpins modern risk‑management workflows.
For enterprises, these innovations translate into faster, data‑rich hiring decisions and stronger compliance safeguards. Psychometric insights from Plum reduce reliance on subjective judgments, while unified data graphs and verified identity layers improve candidate matching and fraud prevention. The growing patent protection around social screening signals a maturing market where proprietary algorithms become strategic assets. Companies that integrate these tools can expect higher employee retention, lower turnover costs, and a competitive edge in talent wars, making the current surge in HR‑tech acquisitions a critical signal for forward‑looking business leaders.
Episode Description
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Alright rec techies…..here’s what's happening this week.
Windmill describes itself as the “context graph for your people.” While most companies have sophisticated systems of record for their finances (ERP) and customers (CRM), the startup argues that the most critical asset—the workforce—is often managed via guesswork and fragmented data.
They announced this week theyve raised $12 million in a seed funding round. The investment was led by Inspired Capital, with significant participation from Primary Venture Partners, Founder Collective, and Oceans Ventures.
https://hrtechfeed.com/performance-management-tool-raises-12m/
NY — Nomad Health announced its formal transition from a healthcare staffing agency to a software platform company. Nomad will offer its proprietary AI operating system to mid-market and enterprise healthcare staffing firms nationwide.
https://hrtechfeed.com/nomad-health-evolves-from-staffing-agency-to-ai-software-company/
SAN FRANCISCO — Checkr, the data platform powering safe and fair decisions across work and everyday life, today announced Checkr Profiles, a portable identity solution that gives individuals control over their verified credentials. Individuals can proactively share them, and marketplaces and platforms can embed trusted identity verification directly into their ecosystems.
https://hrtechfeed.com/checkr-launches-profiles-giving-people-a-verified-identity-that-travels-with-them/
PHILADELPHIA—As AI-generated resumes, deepfake interview responses, and fabricated work histories create a new candidate verification crisis for enterprise hiring, Phenom today announced the acquisition of Plum, a pioneer in psychometric-based talent assessments that validate the durable skills AI cannot manufacture and resumes cannot verify.
https://hrtechfeed.com/phenom-acquires-plum/
LOS ANGELES — Fama Technologies, Inc., a pioneer in AI-powered social background screening, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has allowed all claims in its patent application covering the foundational technology behind social media background screening. The patent, titled “System for Searching and Correlating Online Activity with Individual Classification Factors,” has a priority date of November 30, 2015, establishing Fama as the original inventor of the technology that has since become a critical component of modern hiring and risk management.
https://hrtechfeed.com/fama-technologies-granted-u-s-patent-on-foundational-ai-powered-social-media-screening-technology/
Performance Management Tool Raises $12M
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